


The Collect

by Mairead1916



Category: The Departed (2006)
Genre: Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Family, Gen
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-12-17
Updated: 2018-12-24
Packaged: 2019-09-21 11:49:19
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 2
Words: 6,784
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17043188
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mairead1916/pseuds/Mairead1916
Summary: An exploration of the changing relationship dynamics between Billy; his sister, Rosemary (OC); and Madolyn, before, during, and after the events of the movie.





	1. Billy

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song accompaniment: "Ashes to Ashes," Warpaint and "Drinking Song," Hayley Heynderickx

Billy had to search through three rooms of drunk teenagers before he found his sister, Rosemary, slumped over on a couch, a half-filled red solo cup clutched between her hands.

“All right,” he said. “Get up. We’re leaving.”

“Billy?” Rosemary looked up as if she were just noticing him for the first time, which, in her drunken state, she probably was.

“Come on,” he said, grabbing her by the arm and pulling her up from the couch, taking the solo cup from her hands as he did so.

“Where are we going?” she asked as Billy navigated her through the hallway, toward the door.

“The hospital.”

“I don’t need to go to the hospital,” she said. “I’m not even… I only had one drink, Billy. Honest.”

Billy shook his head. Rosemary had clearly had more than one drink, and, if she were more sober, she would realize how obvious this was. She would also realize exactly where they were going and why.

“It’s not for you,” he said. “It’s for Mom. She’s been admitted. I figured I should get you.”

“Mom?” Rosemary asked, immediately sounding soberer, more of this world, even as her legs buckled beneath her and she nearly fell. “Is she okay?”

Billy didn’t know what to say. _Okay_ was, of course, relative.

“She has a fever. One of those chemo things. They wanted to monitor it. She’s not going to die.” Not right away. Soon, it seemed but not during that hospital stay—hopefully not.

“Do you have a coat?” Billy asked, searching through a pile of jackets on the floor.

“I don’t know… I don’t know where I put it. I think I had one. I think it’s… I don’t know where it is.”

“All right,” Billy said, sensing Rosemary’s growing panic. “That’s all right. We’ll come back for it tomorrow. Come here.” He took off his jacket and draped it over his sister, helping her maneuver her leaden arms into the sleeves, zipping up the far too large coat around her slender frame.

“I’m sorry,” Rosemary said.

Billy ignored the apology. “Come on,” he said, steering her out the door and into the cold December air, down the sidewalk, and into his car.

For several minutes, neither one of them said anything. Billy, aware of the despondency that had overtaken Rosemary with the news of their mother’s ill-health, found himself torn between compassion and anger, not willing to offer the former and not wanting to vent the latter. Rosemary, for her part, was staring straight ahead, determined, as if resisting the urge to vomit was all she could handle at the moment.

“I’m really sorry,” she finally said.

Billy sighed. “What are you doing this shit for, Rosemary?”

“I don’t know.”

She was only fifteen, a sophomore in high school. Billy, who, despite his high grades and generally good behavior, had always been the “bad kid” due to his temper, had not started drinking until his junior year, at which point he was already seventeen. And even then, he had never gotten truly sloshed, always confined his alcohol consumption to a friend’s basement, never drunk himself into a stupor at some popular kid’s party.

“Do you think she’ll know?” Rosemary asked.

“That you’re drunk?”

Rosemary nodded her head so vigorously she had to grip the car door afterward, steadying herself.

“Yeah,” Billy said. “I think she’ll know.”

“Do you think she’ll be upset?”

“I do.”

“Pull over,” Rosemary said with sudden urgency.

“Rosemary, I told her I was going to get you. We can’t just not show.”

“No,” Rosemary said. “I have to throw up.”

“Oh.” Billy pulled to the side of the road just in time, with Rosemary throwing open the passenger side door before the car had even come to a full stop, vomiting into the icy, brown snow that lined the highway. Billy watched, glad she had not unbuckled her seatbelt, realizing it was likely the only thing keeping her from toppling out of the car herself. “You okay?” he asked, reaching a hand toward her.

Again, a relative term.

“Yeah,” Rosemary said, wiping her mouth and situating herself back in her seat. “Yeah. Keep driving.”

When they reached the hospital a half hour later, Rosemary didn’t move until Billy came over to her side of the car and opened the door.

“How do I look?” she asked.

Bad, Billy thought. And drunk. And small, like a child, which is what she was really.

“You look fine,” he said, reaching into the pocket of his coat, the one she was now wearing, and pulling out a slightly dirty paper napkin, which he handed to her, expecting her to use it to wipe away the mascara smeared beneath her eyes. When she didn’t move, Billy grabbed the napkin back and scrubbed at the black smudges himself.

“Do you think she’ll know?” Rosemary asked again.

“Maybe she won’t,” Billy said, even though this was a lie. Their mother would definitely know. The woman at the front desk certainly knew, eyeing both of them suspiciously as Billy gave their names and the name of the patient they were there to see—Mary Costigan.

Outside their mother’s room, Rosemary turned to Billy again, looking for one final assurance. Billy was reminded of visiting his mother’s parents as a child, of his mother straightening his collar before ringing the doorbell. Of how his grandparents, who had never approved of his father and therefore never quite approved of him and his sister either, never seemed entirely satisfied by his mother’s efforts.

“You’re good,” Billy said, tucking a loose strand of Rosemary’s hair behind her ear before guiding her through the doorway.

“Hey, Mom,” Rosemary said, going to sit at the foot of their mother’s bed.

Despite her drunkenness, her worry over her mother, Rosemary seemed comfortable, almost casual. Billy always marveled over this comfort. He hated hospitals, but Rosemary never seemed to mind. Billy supposed she was used to them. She’d hardly known any different. Rosemary, who’d come along seven years after Billy, right as Mary and Bill Sr.’s marriage was falling apart and they were trying one last ditch effort to make it work, had been in and out of hospitals her whole life. Mary had first been diagnosed with breast cancer when Rosemary was just three years old. From that, she had recovered, but two years later came a leukemia diagnosis and then periods of remission, always followed by another relapse. This most recent one had been going on for a year and they all knew it would be the last.

“Hey, honey,” Mary said, reaching for her daughter, gesturing for her to come closer. As Rosemary did so, moving so she was lying in bed next to her mother, Mary inhaled quickly and gave Billy a knowing look. “Thanks for getting her,” she said. Then, turning her attention back to Rosemary, “I’m sorry to worry you. I thought about leaving you at Colleen’s, but I figured you’d like to know.”

“I do. I’m glad Billy told me.”

“I am sorry, though. It’s all very silly, isn’t it?”

“It’s not silly,” Rosemary said, lining the fingertips of her hand up against those of her mother’s. “How are you feeling?” she asked.

“Oh, you know.”

This was their mother’s way of saying bad, a word she never spoke aloud. In all the years she’d been sick, Billy had only seen her cry once. It had been just the two of them in the room—Rosemary was down the hall, getting snacks and coffee—and Mary had suddenly burst into tears, clutching at first her stomach and then her chest.

“Mom,” Billy had said. “Mom, do you want me to get someone?”

“No, no. Billy, why don’t you step outside for a minute?”

“I don’t have to step outside, Mom. Not unless you want me to.”

Mary shook her head. “I hate this,” she said.

“Mom?” Billy leaned forward, trying to determine the source of the pain, as if knowing would make any difference, as if he could actually do something.

His mother shook her head again.

Then she’d closed her eyes while tears leaked out from behind her eyelids, and Billy, unsure what to do, had held her hands in his, gently rubbing them back and forth.

“I’m so sorry, Mom,” he’d said.

Now, Mary was her usual calm self, though with each new waft of vodka emanating from Rosemary, Billy saw his mother frown. When Rosemary said she had to use the bathroom and practically ran from the room, no doubt to vomit once more, Mary turned to Billy.

“She wasn’t at Colleen’s, was she?” This was the cover story Rosemary had given earlier that night, her ticket out of the house.

“No,” Billy said. “She was at a party. I’ll talk to her about it.”

Mary paused, contemplating. “Could you?” she said. “Is that too much to ask?”

“It’s not too much.”

“I just don’t want what she remembers of these last few…” Mary trailed off. None of them, doctors included, knew whether it would be months or years. “I don’t want us fighting.”

“Of course,” Billy said.

“You’re a good kid, you know that?”

Billy shrugged.

“Yeah, you know,” Mary said, winking at him before letting both eyes close.

Twenty minutes later, with his mother asleep and Rosemary still not back, Billy went to go find her, knocking on and then ducking his head into various restrooms, finding her in the last one on the hall, sitting cross-legged on the floor, his jacket tucked underneath her, absorbing countless germs from the dirty tile.

He considered saying something about this, chastising her, but when Rosemary looked up at him, her face was streaked red and black from tears and mascara, and he softened. “You all right?” he asked.

“This is the women’s room,” Rosemary said, wiping at her eyes with the palms of her hands.

Billy looked from side to side. “I don’t seem to be bothering anyone.”

“You’re bothering me.”

“I’ll go if you want me to.”

“If I said I did, would you really leave?”

“I would.”

“Okay,” Rosemary said. “I don’t want you to leave.”

“Good,” Billy said. “Then I won’t.” He looked down, surveying the tile floor cautiously before taking a seat next to his sister. “You can’t do this anymore,” he said.

“Do what?”

“You fucking know what.”

“How do you know this isn’t the first time I’ve done this?” Rosemary asked. It was neither an admission nor a denial, more a challenge.

“Because you’ve come home smelling like liquor every night this week.”

“Yeah, but I haven’t been like _drunk_ drunk.”

“But you are, like, fifteen.”

“Fifteen’s old enough for a lot of shit.”

She was right. Fifteen was old enough for a lot. It was old enough to have already lost a father, to now be losing a mother as well.

“Not old enough for drinking,” Billy said, knowing this was not what his sister was talking about. “Besides, what does _drunk_ drunk even mean? What would that look like?”

“Like this,” Rosemary said, pulling her knees up to her chest and sticking her head in between them.

“Have you had any water?” Billy asked.

“No.”

“All right.”

As he stood up, Rosemary lifted her head and looked at him in horror. “Where are you going?”

“To get you some water,” Billy said impatiently. “Is that all right with you?”

“Just make sure to come back,” she said, her protestations over his presence in the woman’s room apparently forgotten.

“Yeah,” Billy said, leaning down to place a reassuring hand on her shoulder. “I will.”

When he returned, Rosemary’s head was back between her knees and she didn’t look up or even acknowledge him. Until she spoke, Billy was unsure she’d even noticed him.

“Is Mom mad?” she asked, her voice muffled.

“Not mad.”

“But she knows?”

“Yeah.”

“Are you mad?”

“I don't know, Rosemary. Yeah, I guess. A bit.”

“It’s just easier this way,” Rosemary said, a pseudo-explanation.

“ _This_ is easier?” Billy asked, nudging her arm with the cup of water he had brought back for her.

Rosemary didn’t answer but did lift her head from its cocoon, taking the water from him and downing it in one gulp. Then she stood up shakily and refilled it in the bathroom sink, downing this cup as well. After the third go-around, her eyes widened and she ran to the toilet, retching. It was as if she had made herself sick on purpose, like a dog eating grass to make itself feel better, only Billy didn’t think Rosemary’s intent was to feel good.

“You know none of this is your fault?” Billy said, standing in the open stall doorway.

Her hands gripping the toilet bowl, Rosemary turned to face him incredulously. “What?” she asked. “Being drunk?”

“Mom,” Billy said. “Her being sick again. If you’re punishing yourself—”

“I’m not.”

“What are you doing then?”

“Having fun.”

“Yeah,” Billy said. “This looks like a real blast.”

“Shut up,” Rosemary said, pushing herself up and wiping her mouth on the back of her arm. Slowly, she lowered herself back to her original position on top of the jacket, then handed Billy the now empty cup, waiting for him to fill it for her. A power move, Billy thought, some way to reestablish a hint of dominance. He refilled the cup anyway and when he handed it back to her, she drank it slowly, squeezing the cup with both hands, making the plastic crinkle. “Thanks,” she said.

Billy watched her for several seconds before sitting down as well.

“You know, we’ll be okay,” he said.

Rosemary nodded noncommittally.

Billy could tell she didn’t believe him. All his life, he’d been making things better for Rosemary, or trying to anyway. When their mother’s relatives raised their eyebrows at her scraped knees or criticized the way she sat in a chair, the way she moved, the way she held herself “like a boy.” When their cousins from Southie mocked her for sounding so unlike them, for the things she said and the way she said them. When their father died four years ago and Rosemary almost came apart at the seams. All these times, Billy had been there, had done his best. Even when he failed, which he knew he sometimes did, Rosemary had still trusted him to make it right eventually, to sort things out. He wondered what was different now. He supposed she was growing up but didn’t understanding why this growth had to be accompanied by such diminished faith in him. Reflecting on this, he felt a stinging sensation in his nose and quickly cleared his throat, trying to clear the helpless feeling along with it.

“No more drinking,” he said, as if this were enough to settle the matter.

Rosemary gave no protest so perhaps it was. Instead, she leaned her head against his shoulder.

“You believe me, right?” Billy asked. “We will be okay.”

“Yeah,” Rosemary said, and Billy knew she was lying but tried to convince himself she wasn’t.


	2. Rosemary

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Song accompaniment: "Joshua Tree in the Headphones," Deb Talan and "We're So Lost," Voom

Rosemary turned eighteen one month before her mother died, that month marking the difference between unsupervised minor in need of care and adult ready to fend for herself.

“Good timing,” she said hours after the funeral as she and her brother, Billy, sat in their mother’s large, old-fashioned house.

Her eighteenth birthday had exempted them from dealing with the Department of Child Services, of figuring out whether Billy would act as her guardian or not, something they’d never talked about, probably because it was just assumed he would but maybe, Rosemary always worried, because he didn’t actually want to. Still, the comment had been callous, full of the feigned casualness of a teenager trying to be tougher than she was, and Rosemary knew she should not have said it when Billy looked over at her, his eyes furious for a second, maybe less, before transitioning into an expression of immense sadness. For the next hour, neither of them spoke.

“I’m not going to abandon you,” Billy finally said. The sudden noise made Rosemary jump. “Just because you’re legally an adult, I’m not just going to disappear.”

But then, that’s exactly what he did.

When Rosemary heard Billy had been kicked out of the police academy, she could hardly believe it, but then she remembered Deerfield and that mess, remembered the fights he used to get into, the way his attempts to defend her back when they were kids had always been a bit overzealous, had always embarrassed her. When she heard he had been kicked out for assault, that he was going to jail, she sat down on her mother’s couch and pinched herself until she drew blood.

“How long will you be in?” she asked on their first visitation day.

“Four months, give or take.”

“Right.” Rosemary nodded slowly. This meant Billy would miss her graduation. Caring about that now felt ridiculous.

“I’m so sorry,” Billy said.

“Fuck. You,” Rosemary thought.

“It’s okay,” she said.

By the time Billy got out, Rosemary had most of their mother’s belongings packed up and was looking for an agent to sell the house. Though Rosemary always thought of it as her mother’s house, it had really been her house as well, the one she’d grown up in, but she didn’t want to live there anymore, had never particularly liked it. Going back there after weekends spent in her father’s cramped Southie apartment always felt strange to her. The place was too big for three people. The carpets were too red, the wallpaper too floral. It looked like the kind of house someone’s grandmother would have died in, only it was Rosemary’s mother who had died there, right in the living room.

Rosemary drove Billy home from jail in their mother’s old Volvo sedan, the one he had taught her to drive in two years earlier, neither one of them saying much. She wasn’t sure what to expect from him, nor what he expected from her. She hadn’t told him about the packing and thought she should perhaps prepare him but didn’t know how. She prayed he wouldn’t want to live there, wouldn’t stand between her and selling the house. As they entered the house, Rosemary watched Billy closely, following his eyes as they darted around from box to box, trying to judge his reaction.

“You moving out?” he asked.

“I start college in like a week,” Rosemary said. Boston College, not too far away. She had done that on purpose. Now part of her, the same part that wanted to sell her mother’s house as quickly as possible, wished she hadn’t.

“A lot of this stuff is Mom’s, though.”

“I was just trying to get it ready,” Rosemary said. “For realtors and stuff.”

“You’re selling the house?” Billy raised his eyebrows.

“I was hoping to, yeah. But if you want to stay here or something…”

“I was kinda planning on it.”

“Right,” Rosemary said. “Of course.”

Billy looked at her as if he couldn’t understand her. “Don’t you want somewhere to come home to on school breaks?”

Home, Rosemary thought, had left a long time ago. “I mean…” she began, before trailing off, giving up. She shrugged her shoulders, unsure what else there was to say.

After his jail stint, Billy was different, though not in ways Rosemary could articulate. All she knew was suddenly the brother who had always been around, sometimes too much so, was nowhere to be found. Rosemary thought they’d spend time together before she moved into the BC dorms but each morning when she woke up, Billy was already headed out the door.

“Going to the city,” he always said, no further explanation, no acknowledgment that his presence might be appreciated at home.

“What do you do all day?” Rosemary asked him one evening, one of the rare ones when he returned home before midnight.

“I’ve been spending some time with Sean.”

Sean was a cousin and not a particularly likeable one. The last time Rosemary had seen him was at their uncle Jackie’s funeral where Sean had greeted her with, “I see the princess has arrived.”

“Why are you seeing Sean?” Rosemary asked.

“He has a few connections.”

“You think he’s gonna hook you up with the CEO of Lehman or something?”

Rosemary had meant this more as a reproach than a joke, but she was still struck by the fact that Billy didn’t even smile, didn’t look annoyed either.

“He’s got a few things going,” he said.

“What things? Waste management?”

Billy shook his head. “Waste management is the Italians,” he said, a correction but not a denial of Rosemary’s basic premise. They both knew what kind of “connected” Sean was.

“Listen,” Rosemary said. “I just think if you ever want a police job, it’d be better if you didn’t hang around people like Sean.”

Billy shook his head. “I’m not a cop anymore, Rosemary. I’m never gonna be a cop.”

“Why not?”

“Because I got fucking arrested.”

“You don’t think a violent streak is an asset in the Boston police force?”

Now Billy looked angry, just for a second. His face blank once more, he pushed himself up from the couch he was sitting on with a sigh, as if it took all his effort. “Have you eaten yet?” he asked.

“Yeah.”

“Okay,” he said, walking out the front door without another word.

Two days later, he helped her move into her dorm room, lofted her bed for her, gave her a lecture on always keeping her door locked at night. Then he was gone. Again.

For Thanksgiving that year he told her he’d probably be busy and that she should “make plans” with other people. The day before, she received a package with a can of cranberry sauce and a photo of her as a child, no more than three or four, surrounded by a huge stack of cans, smiling gleefully. Attached to the photo was a note in Billy’s handwriting: “Found this while going through some of Mom’s things. Hope it’s still your favorite.” Rosemary threw the note away and left the can unopened on her dresser, a kind of protest, she supposed.

In the absence of her brother, she made other connections, for the first time in her life really. She joined a running club and actually talked to people on the jogs instead of running far ahead as she would have done before. She became infatuated with a girl on her hall and approached this development with excitement rather than fear. When the girl, Stephanie, asked her to see a movie Rosemary said yes, and when Stephanie kissed her Rosemary kissed back, and when Stephanie invited Rosemary into her room Rosemary went.

That winter, when Rosemary asked if she should “make other arrangements” for Christmas and Billy said no, she was actually disappointed. She didn’t protest, however. When she’d returned to her mother’s house at the beginning of break, she’d found it a mess, open boxes everywhere, pill bottles she had previously shunted into a drawer scattered across various tables and countertops. Apparently “going through some of Mom’s things” had become a regular activity for Billy. Chipped tea cups with green flowers painted on them, pink lamps, even an old rotary phone sat in their boxes, the newspaper Rosemary had so carefully wrapped them in now crumpled into balls next to each item. She took to counting the pills in the OxyContin bottles at night and found one to three missing each morning. Rosemary wasn’t sure what to do about any of this, but leaving Billy alone on Christmas didn’t seem like it would help.

On Christmas Eve, or technically the very beginning of Christmas proper, they attended midnight Mass like always, but this was the first year without their mother, and when Rosemary looked to her right, she saw tears in Billy’s eyes. When she reached over and squeezed his hand, meaning it as a comforting gesture, he jumped, then blinked quickly, clearing the tears away. For the rest of Mass, he seemed to be trying to regain a normal breathing pattern.

The next morning, Rosemary slept in later than she had any Christmas before. She liked to sleep, found it easier than being awake, and probably would have stayed in bed even longer had Billy not pounded on her door at ten.

“I’ve been awake for five hours,” he said when she opened the door. He didn’t seem angry so much as childishly impatient, excited even. “Come on,” he said, leading Rosemary downstairs, toward the smell of warm pancakes, which she eventually found piled high on a plate in the kitchen.

“You made these?”

“Yeah.”

“That’s really nice.”

Billy shrugged. “It was easy.”

“Aren’t you going to have some?” Rosemary asked.

“Nah. My stomach’s been off lately.”

“So you’re just going to watch me eat?”

“Yep.”

“This feels really weird.”

“Yeah, well, Merry Christmas, I guess.”

“Merry Christmas.”

Rosemary wasn’t sure what came next. When they were kids, Christmas was the busiest day of the year. After returning from midnight Mass at two a.m., they would hardly sleep before bursting out of bed to spend the next few hours in their pajamas, opening presents and grudgingly letting their mother take pictures of them. For Rosemary, this was the best part of the day, when it was just the three of them. Then, at eight, her mother would stick her in a pink frilly dress and they’d go over to her grandparents’ house for an hours-long Christmas breakfast, during which her grandmother would tell her to sit up straighter and cross her legs. By the time she turned ten, there was the added exhortation not to eat too much. Then, at noon, they’d be scurried over to Boston for the next meal, where their father’s relatives piled far more food onto Rosemary’s plate than she could possibly eat and asked her repeatedly if she liked it or not. “What? Do you think you’re fat or something?” an aunt asked her one year. By the time it was all over, she would invariably fall asleep in the back of her father’s car, waking up in her own bed the next morning. There was none of that anymore, for better or worse.

“Should we pray or something?” Rosemary asked when she’d finish eating.

“You didn’t do enough praying last night?”

“I guess I did. I just mean, it feels like we should do something.”

Billy shrugged. “This is something, right?”

“Yeah,” Rosemary said. “Yeah, it is.”

Later, Rosemary would wish she had left it at that. That they had settled on the couch and watched a dumb Christmas movie, looking over at each other every once in a while, smiling, enjoying the time they had together.

Instead, she said, “I’m just surprised the family didn’t invite us over or something.”

“If they had, would you have wanted to go?”

“No. Not really. It just seems like poor form for them not to say anything.”

“Poor form is what the Costigans are built on.”

“Yeah, but like Mom’s family too.”

“I don’t think Uncle Edward would look too favorably on having a convicted felon at his table.”

Rosemary nodded, remembering an argument that Billy and their uncle had at the hospital just before their mother’s death.

“We were never going to fit in anyway,” Billy said.

Rosemary found the way he said it interesting. Not we never _did_ fit in, but we were never _going_ to, as if they were both still trying—or had been. She supposed this was true.

“Fuck ‘em,” she said, not sure she truly meant it but wishing she did.

Billy raised his eyebrows and smiled slightly. Rosemary even thought she saw a faint twinkle of amusement in his eyes. Still, there was an unmistakable weariness there, a hollowness to his facial features.

“Billy, are you okay?”

His smile fell instantly. “Of course I am.”

“But are you really?”

“Yes.”

“Really?”

“Yes, Rosemary, yes. I’m fucking fine.”

“Okay,” Rosemary said, deciding not to push it further.

For a moment, they stared at each other, both frustrated, both trying not to be. Rosemary usually won these competitions, whether the goal was to hold a grudge or get over one. She had always been more in control of her anger than her brother, though that had not always translated into good behavior.

“You’re using your powers for evil,” her father would tell her whenever he found her sulking after some perceived slight or giving someone—usually Billy—the silent treatment weeks after a fight. Sometimes when she was angry with her father, he’d say, “You’re too smart for me, Rosie girl. I can’t stay mad like you can. I just don’t have it in me.” Even as a kid, Rosemary hated the implication that her father was somehow less intelligent than the rest of the family, one made not infrequently by both him and others. Still, her father’s self-deprecation never got her to speak. True to form, she always stamped down the guilt and sadness, stoking her anger like a fire.

Now, however, wanting to set her frustration aside, she found that she couldn’t. There was something infuriating about Billy’s refusal to accept help when he so clearly needed it. To Rosemary, it was not a symbol of strength but rather stupidity.

This time, it was Billy who moved on first.

“I have a present for you,” he said, disappearing into the living room and gesturing for her to follow.

Rosemary watched as he reached underneath the tree—a fake one bought at a ridiculous markup just two days earlier—and pulled out a book-sized package. As he handed it to her, she felt the red wrapping paper, faded and worn from years of repeat use. Their mother had always saved the wrapping from packages, keeping it folded neatly in several overflowing bags in her closet, bags that Rosemary thought she had thrown out. Perhaps she had missed one, she thought, wondering why Billy had been rifling through their mother’s closet in the first place—whether he’d been looking for the nostalgia he seemed to crave nowadays or the pills.

Rosemary opened the package carefully, feeling as though any rip in the paper would send the day spiraling into chaos, would ruin everything. Pulling back the last flap of paper, she found a small leather book, absent of any title or markings.

“Open it,” Billy said, his voice brimming with a nervous energy.

Rosemary did, revealing a simple, unornate photo album. On the first page was a picture of her mother holding her just after she was born, another of her in a hospital bassinette, Billy standing on his tiptoes to see inside. By the next page, she had aged five years and her father was teaching her how to ride a bike on the street outside of his Southie apartment, she and Billy were flying kites on the beach in Cape Cod, her mother was standing in a darkened room of the house holding a cake illuminated by candles.

“With the house and stuff,” Billy began, “I mean if we sell it… You don’t want to get rid of it all, right?”

“It all” being the memories Rosemary supposed. No, she didn’t want to get rid of those, she didn’t think.

“Thank you,” she said. For a moment, she though she might cry, but, when she opened her mouth, it was laughter that came out. “I got you socks,” she said. “Socks and a CD.”

“Well now you’ve ruined the surprise.”

“Yeah,” Rosemary said, looking at her brother’s now shimmering profile. “Sorry.” She wiped at her eyes quickly, feeling fresh tear drops falling onto her fingers.

“Hey,” Billy said, pulling her into a hug. “It’s all right. You know I was just joking about the surprise, right?”

Rosemary nodded into his shoulder before pulling back and lifting her hands to her face, pressing her palms hard into her eyes as if trying to staunch a bleeding wound.

“I’m sorry,” she said.

“It’s okay,” Billy said, his arms still wrapped loosely around her.

Slowly, Rosemary let herself fall back into the hug, let herself rest in her brother’s embrace, to stop worrying, if only for a moment.

When the phone on the kitchen counter began to buzz, Rosemary assumed Billy would ignore it, but he didn’t. Instead, he let her go, rushing to the phone, walking right out the front door as he answered it.

“I’m sorry,” he said, returning minutes later. “I have to go.”

“What?” Rosemary asked. “You’re leaving?”

“I have to.”

“Why?”

“I have to work.”

“For who?” Rosemary asked, afraid of what the answer might be.

“My boss.”

“Does your boss know it’s Christmas?”

“Listen, Rosemary, I’m really sorry. I can’t make him wait.”

“Why not?”

“Look, I’m sorry. I need this job. People have to make money, you know. _I_ have to make money.”

“You paying taxes on that money,” Rosemary asked.

“Oh, come off it, Rosemary.”

“I swear, if you’re in with Jackie’s friends…”

“You’ll what?”

“Just tell me you’re not.”

“I’m not.”

Rosemary breathed deeply, softening somewhat. “If you’re in trouble, I can help you.”

“Right. Cause you’ve always been all about family.”

Rosemary wasn’t sure exactly what Billy meant by this, but the note of accusation was unmistakable.

“Excuse me?” she said.

“You don’t wanna deal with me. You don’t even want to deal with Mom. Trying to sell the house and shit.”

“That’s not fair.”

“Isn’t it?” Billy said, crossing his arms, waiting for an explanation.

“You think I don’t want to deal with you,” Rosemary began, “but how would you even know? You’re never around.”

Billy scoffed. “Like I said, we can’t all take classes all day, talk about Plato and shit. Some of us have to work for a living.”

“Fuck you,” Rosemary said. “You know I can’t believe I came home for this. I could have spent today with people who actually care about me.”

Instantly, Billy’s face transformed from irritation to profound hurt. “You think I don’t care about you?”

“Yeah.”

“Then fuck you too, Rosemary. I mean, shit.” He opened his mouth to say more, but nothing came out. Rosemary watched as his eyebrows drew closer together. “Ah, shit,” he said again, shaking his head and walking out, slamming the door shut behind him.

In the living room, Rosemary ripped the red wrapping paper into pieces.

She would not see Billy again until the end of her second semester, when she returned to her dorm building one night to find him standing outside. In the intervening months, he had called her several times, but she had never answered. Often she’d wanted to, had worried about him, missed him, but her will was too strong, her grasp on her anger too tight. As she had many times before, she tended her anger carefully, built it up so it could crowd out everything else. She had left her mother’s house Christmas night and not looked back since, or tried not to.

But now her brother was standing in front of her, shifting nervously from foot to foot, looking more haggard than she’d ever seen him, and she neither wanted to nor could ignore him.

“Are you all right?” he said as soon as he saw her, reaching toward her and pulling her closer with a hand on the back of her neck as if inspecting her for injury. “No one’s come here? No one’s bothered you.”

“I’m fine,” Rosemary said even though, in this moment, she felt considerably less than fine. “Billy, what’s going on?”

“Is there somewhere we can go?” he asked, releasing his hold on her and shoving his hands so far into his pockets it looked like he was trying to rip through the fabric.

“Yeah,” she said, using her ID card to open the door and ushering him through. “My roommate usually stays with her boyfriend,” she told Billy when they reached her room.

“Good,” Billy said, sitting down on the edge of her bed. “That’s good.” He made a sound somewhere between a throat clear and nervous tic. “You have any whiskey?”

“We’re not allowed to have alcohol in the dorms.”

“So,” Billy said, “you have any whiskey?”

“I have vodka.”

“Sure,” he said. “That’ll work.”

Rosemary pulled the frozen vodka bottle out her mini-fridge and sat down next to Billy on the bed. “It’ll take a while to thaw,” she said.

Billy nodded. “All right.”

“Billy, what’s going on?”

Billy shook his head.

“You can tell me.”

Another head shake.

“Why’d you come here if you weren’t going to say anything?”

Billy bowed his head. When he lifted it, his expression was that of a child. “I’m sorry,” he said, beginning to stand. “I should… I should go.”

“No,” Rosemary said, regretting her harshness. “No, you should stay.”

As she wrapped an arm around Billy’s shoulders, pulling him back to the bed, he flinched at her touch, her fingers ice cold from the bottle of vodka.

“Sorry,” she said, as if she had physically hurt him. “So, is there anything you can tell me?”

“I just—” He shook his head again, ran his fingers through his hair several times before speaking. “I don’t know.”

“That’s okay,” Rosemary said, expecting that would be all she’d hear of it.

“I fucked up,” Billy continued, surprising her. “I’m sorry.”

“You don’t have to be,” Rosemary said, both meaning it and not. Remembering the experience of visiting Billy in prison for the first time, of walking across the stage at graduation knowing there was no one waiting for her on the other side, but also the feeling of him holding her after their father’s heart attack, of knowing she’d always have somewhere to turn when life felt unbearable.

“I don’t know what to do,” Billy said. “I just...” He trailed off morosely.

“How can I help?”

Again, Billy shook his head.

“You’ll stay here tonight?” Rosemary asked.

“Yeah.” Billy made that same throat clearing noise. “Yeah. That’d be good. Thanks.”

Without another word, he reached for the partially thawed vodka bottle still in her hands and downed the entirety of the liquid, shaking the block of frozen liquor inside the bottle when he’d finished.

“Maybe you shouldn’t drink right now,” Rosemary said, grimacing at the memory of her sophomore year of high school, of the year after her mother’s cancer returned for the last time, the year she drank to forget but never actually did.

“I shouldn’t have come here,” Billy said.

“What?” Rosemary asked, caught off guard. “Did I do something wrong?”

“No. I mean, I’m sorry I came here. I’m sorry to put you through this. I just… I had nowhere else to go.”

“It’s okay,” Rosemary said, feeling Billy tremble. “Really, Billy, it’s not a problem.”

She still had her arm around him, but she drew away as Billy began to struggle for air. “You’re all right,” she said, staying back, giving him space to breathe. “You’ll be all right.”

She recognized this as a panic attack, had seen Billy get them before, the year their father died, though he always tried to hide them. As he continued to gasp, she tried to remain calm, keep her own panic in check, not necessarily panic at the scene playing out before her, but rather at whatever could have caused it.

“Try breathing with me,” she said, slowly inhaling, then holding the breath for a moment before releasing it with a gentle whooshing sound. “You’re doing great,” she said as Billy’s breathing started to slow.

When he’d finally regained control of his body, Billy lifted the vodka bottle to his mouth once more, taking a swig of the melted liquor.

“Thanks,” he said, his voice small. Then, so quietly Rosemary thought she might have misheard, “A man’s dead because of me.”

“Did you…” she began but could not finish. _Did you kill him?_

Billy took her meaning well enough. “No,” he said. “Fuck no. You think…”  

Rosemary could feel him working his way back to hysteria. “No, of course I don’t think that,” she said. Even though she had thought it, if only for a moment. Had wondered, was her brother capable of such a thing? “I’m sorry, Billy,” she said. “I would never think that.”

Slowly, Billy turned to look at her. “You’ll be all right,” he said. “No matter what happens, you’ll be all right. I’ll make sure of it.”

“Okay.”

“You can trust me on that.”

“I do.”

“Good,” Billy said, and, as he flashed her a quick wavering smile, Rosemary decided not to tell him it wasn’t herself she was worried about.


End file.
